The Zeppelin's Passenger eBook

“This is all a hideous mistake,” Philippa
declared feverishly. “I assure you that
Mr. Lessingham has visited my father’s house,
that he was well-known to me years ago.”

“As the Baron Maderstrom! What arguments
he has used, Lady Cranston, to induce you to accept
him here under his new identity, I do not know, but
the facts are very clear.”

“He seems quite convinced, doesn’t he?”
Lessingham remarked, turning to Philippa. “And
as I gather that a portion of the British Army, assisted
by the local constabulary, is waiting for me outside,
perhaps I had better humour him.”

“It would be as well, sir,” Captain Griffiths
assented grimly. “I am glad to find you
in the humour for jesting.”

Lessingham turned once more to Philippa. This
time his tone was more serious.

“Lady Cranston,” he begged, “won’t
you please leave us?”

“No!” she answered hysterically.
“I know why you want me to, and I won’t
go! You have done no harm, and nothing shall
happen to you. I will not leave the room, and
you shall not—­”

His gesture of appeal coincided with the sob in her
throat. She broke down in her speech, and Captain
Griffiths moved a step nearer.

“If you have any weapon in your possession,
sir,” he said, “you had better hand it
over to me.”

“Well, do you know,” Lessingham replied,
“I scarcely see the necessity. One thing
I will promise you,” he added, with a sudden
flash in his eyes, “a single step nearer—­a
single step, mind—­and you shall have as
much of my weapon as will keep you quiet for the rest
of your life. Remember that so long as you are
reasonable I do not threaten you. Help me to
persuade Lady Cranston to leave us.”

Captain Griffiths was out of his depths. He
was not a coward, but he had no hankering after death,
and there was death in Lessingham’s threat and
in the flash of his eyes. While he hesitated,
there was a knock upon the door. Mills came
silently in. He carried a telegram upon a salver.

Griffiths looked at the pink envelope and frowned.
He tore it open, however, without a word. As
he read, his long, upper teeth closed in upon his
lip. So he stood there until two little drops
of blood appeared.

Then he turned to Mills.

“There is no answer,” he said.

The man bowed and left the room. He walked slowly
and he looked back from the doorway. It was
scarcely possible for even so perfectly trained a
servant to escape from the atmosphere of tragedy.

The Commandant made no immediate reply. He straightened
out the telegram and read it once more under the lamplight,
as though to be sure there was no possible mistake.
Then he folded it up and placed it in his waistcoat
pocket.